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[Mike_B20]

I've tried several starts using default worldgen parameters and checking to be sure that I'm embarking close to a goblin civilization and that I'm at war with them, not hemmed in by mountains; the last embark I settled just a few tiles away from a goblin fortress and civilization that covered a few dozen tiles on the world map.
However, after several years building my fortress and preparing traps etc. expecting a goblin siege, the goblins are not showing up.

A dwarven ambassador recently arrived and shared world news.
Checking the "c" civilizations screen I can see only three other civilizations: human, dwarf and elven.
This happens every game: no goblins in the civilization screen when world news is shared after several years.

Does this mean the goblins have been wiped out?
If so, why are the goblins being wiped out every game?
My population is 53.

[Larix]

The "c" screen only shows the civilisations you've encountered on this site. If no goblins have come to visit yet, they won't be listed.

Goblins have been "fixed" so they no longer send ambushes. The first regular encounters would be sieges, which require a minimum population set in the raws, for goblins the default is 80. Until you have that many dwarfs, the goblins won't consider you worth their time (but you can alter your region's raws to reduce the siege threshold of goblins).

In theory, you could also be visited by a wandering army that set out for some other place and just "passes through" your embark, but that happens almost never.

[Mike_B20]

The "c" screen only shows the civilisations you've encountered on this site. If no goblins have come to visit yet, they won't be listed.

Goblins have been "fixed" so they no longer send ambushes. The first regular encounters would be sieges, which require a minimum population set in the raws, for goblins the default is 80. Until you have that many dwarfs, the goblins won't consider you worth their time (but you can alter your region's raws to reduce the siege threshold of goblins).

In theory, you could also be visited by a wandering army that set out for some other place and just "passes through" your embark, but that happens almost never.

Thnx for the reply.
What is a "raw"?
Ok, found it; reading up on "raws" now.

[PatrikLundell]

You want to change the parameter(s) called PROGRESS_TRIGGER_SIEGE_POP, if I remember the name correctly. I change these parameters for all the civs before world gen to allow them to arrive as soon as my pop reaches 20 (value = 1). You could use value = 2 for 50. I've never changed this for an existing world, though.
You can also embark close to a black tower. They don't have any pop level trigger at all, so they can arrive the first summer.

[Mike_B20]

You want to change the parameter(s) called PROGRESS_TRIGGER_SIEGE_POP, if I remember the name correctly. I change these parameters for all the civs before world gen to allow them to arrive as soon as my pop reaches 20 (value = 1). You could use value = 2 for 50. I've never changed this for an existing world, though.
You can also embark close to a black tower. They don't have any pop level trigger at all, so they can arrive the first summer.

Ok, they finally showed up!
Changing the PROGRESS_TRIGGER_SIEGE_POP to 2 worked on current game.

Now just to figure out how to best deal with caged goblins.
Would be great if they could be just killed.
Had to reload a save after setting up a firing squad range with a partitioned room, archers behind a fortification wall and a trench; my Administrator was carting a caged goblin to a Pen zone in the room when the caged goblin escaped(one tile from the zone) and killed him lol

[PatrikLundell]

I've used 3 methods to deal with caged hostiles:
- Mass pitting (see wiki). I've basically stopped using that method because the captives sometimes escape when pitted, and when that happens, the whole lot seems to escape (i.e. 8 cages around a locked hatch, if the first one escapes the other ones seem to escape when the time for their pitting comes along, when all 8 pitting jobs are ordered at the same time). This method has the advantage that magma under the hatch eliminates the unsightly bodies and the associated negative thoughts (except for the mess caused when pittees escape). Since pitting is a civilian job, escapes frequently result in civilian injuries, even when the militia is stationed there.
- One-by-one execution through execution squad. Build the cage beside the sapient refuse (quantum) stockpile. Hook it up to a lever outside the room, station the militia there, pull the lever, release the militia from the station order, let the dorfs clean up the mess, hook up the next cage... Trains the militia, and allows your bone carver and bowyer to produce ¤elf bone greaves¤ and ¤goblin bone crossbow¤, but results in stress from all the corpse hauling (I've just had to send my engraver on work therapy due to stress from cleaning up the mess).
- One-by-one execution through atom smashing. Hook up a cage as per the above, but build a 1*10 raising drawbridge in a dead end corridor with two tiles remaining at the end. Build the cage at the end (it and the gear will end up either on the cage tile or the one beside it). Place a door outside of the drawbridge. Pull the lever and lock the door as the victim moves towards it (and thus on top of the bridge) and activate the drawbridge. That usually hurts the victim. Lower the drawbridge to atom smash the victim. This setup can also be used with a pressure plate to automate the smashing, but you then need a manual bridge control as well for the case when the victim decides to stop on the pressure plate (and thus keep the bridge up). Also note that big creatures (undead blind cave ogres among them, I've found. I haven't tried it with living ones, nor with "normal" ogres) are too large to allow the bridge to raise (and destroy it if it tries to smash them).

[Daris]

My method is to station the military in the animal stockpile, which is near, but not within sight of, the magma chute.  Then I pit the goblins one-by-one.  About half escape, and the military kills them, and the rest go into the magma quietly.  All my non-military dwarves are flagged as either miners or woodcutters, so they all carry some kind of weapon and none of them seem to be afraid to use it.  I haven't seen any major civilian injuries.

Once the dwarf leading the goblin to the chute pitches them over the edge, the goblin is considered "free" and will trigger appropriate reactions in anyone who can see it.  This is why my animal stockpile and stationed military is out of sight of the chute.  If the military dwarves are in sight range, they'll react to the falling goblin for the instant it is visible at the top of the chute and create vengeful thoughts in the entire fort.

This is really time-consuming and fiddly but it's the: (1) fastest way I've discovered which (2) minimizes both vengeful and horrified thoughts, while (3) simultaneously preserving the cages for re-use.

[Kneenibble]

The lazy man's alternative to Daris's careful pitting and cage recycling is to make the cages out of clean, renewable glass, and simply dump the whole package.  Just be certain not to use masterwork terraria.

Although I fling my enemies into magma, it raises a question: if you drop a caged foe into a pit, does it suffer the same falling damage as an uncaged foe?

[darkflagrance]

A dwarven ambassador recently arrived and shared world news.
Checking the "c" civilizations screen I can see only three other civilizations: human, dwarf and elven.
This happens every game: no goblins in the civilization screen when world news is shared after several years.

Does this mean the goblins have been wiped out?
If so, why are the goblins being wiped out every game?
My population is 53.

There is actually a known, game-breaking bug where you simply lose contact with goblins despite being in range of them, preventing them from coming to your fort. Toady has acknowledged this bug and fixed in the unreleased version, but it remains active in the current version. I guess changing the progress trigger may have reset the status of the bug though.